GitLab Workflow

Operate on GitLab repositories using the glab CLI — merge requests, CI/CD pipelines, issues, and releases.

FIRST: Verify Environment

Run both checks before any glab command. If either fails, STOP.

git remote -v | grep -i gitlab
glab auth status

If glab is not installed, ask the user to install it (brew install glab on macOS, sudo apt install glab on Debian/Ubuntu). If not authenticated, run glab auth login. For self-managed instances, use glab auth login --hostname gitlab.example.com.

Critical Rules

• Avoid interactive commands. glab ci view launches a TUI the agent cannot operate. Use glab ci status for pipeline state and glab ci view --web to open in browser. Always pass --fill --yes to glab mr create to skip interactive prompts.
• Check CI before requesting review. Run glab ci status after pushing. A broken pipeline wastes reviewer time and signals the MR isn't ready.
• Pull logs first on CI failure. Run glab ci trace <job-name> before anything else — 90% of failures are self-explanatory from the logs.

Behavioral Guidelines

• Use draft MRs for work in progress: create with --draft, mark ready with glab mr update <id> --ready
• Reference issues explicitly: Closes #123 for auto-close, Relates to #123 for tracking only
• Retry flaky failures, fix real ones: glab ci retry <job-name> once. If it fails again, it's a real issue — read the logs and fix the code.

Quick Reference: MR Commands

Task	Command
Create MR (non-interactive)	glab mr create --fill --yes -b main
Create draft MR	glab mr create --fill --yes --draft -b main
List open MRs	glab mr list
View MR details	glab mr view 123
View MR comments	glab mr view 123 --comments
View MR diff	glab mr diff 123
Check out MR locally	glab mr checkout 123
Mark draft as ready	glab mr update 123 --ready
Add reviewers	glab mr update 123 --reviewer user1,user2
Approve MR	glab mr approve 123
Squash and merge	glab mr merge 123 --squash
Merge without waiting for CI	glab mr merge 123 --auto-merge=false
Add MR comment	glab mr note 123 -m "message"

Quick Reference: CI Commands

Task	Command
Check pipeline status	glab ci status
Watch pipeline live	glab ci status --live
Open pipeline in browser	glab ci view --web
List recent pipelines	glab ci list
Pull job logs	glab ci trace <job-name>
Retry failed job	glab ci retry <job-name>
Run new pipeline	glab ci run
Run with variables	glab ci run --variables "KEY:value"
Download artifacts	glab job artifact <ref> <job-name>

Workflow: Branch to Merged MR

After branching, committing, and pushing:

glab mr create --fill --yes -b main    # create MR
glab ci status --live                   # watch pipeline
# if CI fails:
glab ci trace <failed-job-name>         # pull logs, fix, push
glab ci status --live                   # verify fix
# when CI passes and MR is approved:
glab mr merge --squash --remove-source-branch

CI Failure Remediation

1. glab ci status — identify which pipeline failed
2. glab ci trace <job-name> — pull the failed job's logs
3. Read the logs from the bottom up — the final error is usually the root cause
4. Reproduce locally if possible (run the same commands from .gitlab-ci.yml)
5. Fix, commit, push
6. glab ci status --live — watch the new pipeline
7. If still failing, repeat from step 2

Common CI Log Signatures

Pattern	Log Signature
Test failure	FAIL, AssertionError, expected ... got
Build failure	compilation failed, cannot find module
Timeout	Job timed out, exceeded limit
Missing env/secret	undefined, authentication failed
Dependency issue	404 Not Found, version not found

For operations not covered by glab subcommands, use glab api directly. For detailed command options, issue management, releases, search, and advanced CI debugging, see references/commands.md.

Use --fill --yes for MR creation and glab ci status instead of glab ci view — interactive TUI commands will hang.